“From 2007, when it was launched with a P50 million budget, the 4Ps annual spending has surged 176,213 percent with this year’s proposed allocation at P88 billion. With this amount, we should make sure that the real poor are helped and the targets of the program met,” saad ni Recto.

“Most of the 23.7 million poor are in this sector. The poverty incidence among farmers is 34.3 percent, while it is 34 percent for fisher­men. These are higher than the latest poverty incidence fi­gure of 21.6 percent,” giit ni Recto.